Blue-State Locusts

We’ve all seen this happen. A strongly-Republican state begins to occasionally go Democrat in the POTUS election. The largest city (or cities) in the state grow in population, and become solid Democrat for representatives. Maybe one Senator goes Democrat, then both. The state’s government begins to struggle with poor services, and raises taxes. Then the entire state struggles badly in even mild economic downturns, causing more residents to vote for government help, and the state “turns blue.”

Then the economic/business climate worsens, and companies and workers flee to a Red State with a good economic/business climate, and the cycle continues.

This is the hypothesis. Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit fame says the Right should organize Welcome Wagons to explain to these economic migrants that if they don’t change their assumptions and voting preferences, their new state will suffer the same fate that drove them from their old state.

Of course, this isn’t exclusive. Of course, companies and workers moving is still part of the equation. But if my hypothesis is correct, the main impact comes from people who think their old state is just fine, but their personal goals in life have changed.

The ones moving and turning their new state blue are actually upper middle or lower upper class: moderately successful people with the money to create demand for things like “walkable downtowns” and “bikepaths”. Being retired, they have the leisure time to agitate for stuff.

Worse, they’ll probably die before they see the damage from their consumer preferences and voting patterns. There is no downside to them to turning their new state blue. It matches their preferences. If they think about the political aspect at all, they’d most likely feel some pride at being wealthy missionaries bringing enlightenment to a poor, Red State working class.

It is axiomatic that you must accurately identify the problem before you can solve it.

Maybe the key is to stop just playing defense, and stop just trying to slow the decline. We need to go on the offensive and attack malicious Leftist education. Stopping illegal immigration will help, too.

19 thoughts on “Blue-State Locusts”

Maybe states need to act more like countries and NOT allow the free movement of people between them. I mean, if globalism ruins nations, than surely the same precepts ruin states as well.

I can tell you, my home state of New Hampshire would be far better off had all immigration from Massachusetts and Vermont been halted decades ago. People moved to southern New Hampshire from Massachusetts when it became to expensive to live in the Bay State, so it became a bedroom community people priced out of the Boston/inner-495 loop bit still worked there. And now New Hampshire is trending democrat, hard.

Imagine how much of a headache this would be. Want to make a daytrip from Boston to Providence? I don’t know why you’d want to visit Providence, but you better have your papers in order so you can get them stamped when you go across state lines.

Even if there were open borders but other regulations to prevent “immigration” between states, just…man…think of all the extra red tape this would create. Well, at least plenty of cushy new government jobs!